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| Kathmandu Wednesday March 27, 2002 Chaitra 14, 2058. |
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Open passport policy
We all remember that after the dawn of democracy
passport issuance has been open to everybody. No police report is required any more. The
only document we need to produce is the citizenship certificate in order to get a
passport. I understand the logic behind this liberalization but it looks like that we have
completely forgotten the check-and-balance mechanism when we put this rule in place. A
ground level public figure (ward chairman) signs in a recommendation, it goes to the CDO
office and a citizenship certificate is issued and a passport at the second step. There is
no updated record of an individual at the ward level, nor at the district level. In this
way, a lot of non-Nepali citizens are obtaining Nepali fake citizenship and real Nepali
passport.
Here in the US we have seen a lot of so called
Nepal nationals who do not know anything of Nepal and do not speak a single word of Nepali
language but have made their journey with a Nepali passport. One can imagine how a real
Nepali feels when he encounters with such a fake-Nepali, or Nepali in paper only. We all
know what’s going on or what’s lacking. Before making this so open the
government should have thought about the check mechanism. It’s not too late, we
should place some checking and double checking mechanism immediately. This will help
maintain already fading reputation of Nepal and Nepali in the world. We all have heard and
read the thrilling news of the theft of two hundred diplomatic and three hundred ordinary
passports from the store of Shital Niwas, a couple of years ago.
Private Nepali media tried their best to bring
this issue up to the notice of the decision makers, but nothing happened then. The result
- a Dr Ram Sharan Mahat then finance minister) was arrested in a park in Australia while
dealing with drug!! God knows how many fake Ministers, Judges, MPs or so on are still
selling drugs or other things in a foreign land. Why don’t we feel any necessity of
checking these things? My request to the decision-makers is that, we should investigate
such abuses of authorities and put enough checking mechanism in place before we resume the
open passport policy. I do not think that all 75 district headquarters need to issue
passports, it’s hard to manage. It would be better checked if they are reduced to
five regional headquarters.
Subas Pokharel
Maryland, USA |
